This evil above all

Verse 1
This evil above all,
Jesus, I deprecate;
Before from sin to sin I fall
With all my nature’s weight,
My tempted soul require;
But first thy mercy show,
And save me, save me, as by fire
From quenchless flames below.

Verse 2
Farther, and farther still
I surely shall sin on,
And thro’ the last extreams of ill
To swift destruction run,
Unless my constant stay,
My present help Thou art,
And take the love of sin away
Out of this desperate heart.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘They shall fall from one wickedness to another.’—[Ps.] 69:28.” This hymn appears in the 1783 manuscript “MS Scriptural Hymns.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/576, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 9 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), page 306.
Publishing: Public Domain